New project here

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Posted

So Its time to take a break from the kitfox and get on with the stuff I would rather be working on, Thought some of you would get a kick out of this idea,

Sick of paying high water bills to sprinkle my lawn so I'm drilling a well, Got myself a really old garage door opener which will hold the drill and move up and down,  bought a really big drill last year when I first started thinking about doing this, Picked up 40 foot of black 1 inch pipe from Menards which will be used as my drill stem and picked up 40 foot of pvc well casing from the local supply house, If you guys are laughing that ok, I like to have fun, Here is the first few pics of the project,

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Posted

Sounds interesting, I'll be watching. Curious though why you went the drill motor/bit route when so many D.I.Y.'ers use hydro jet? We gotta go a lot deeper than 40' here.

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Posted (edited)

Interesting project TJay.  You must have some tough soil up there?  Where I was raised on a farm in Missouri Bootheel, the folks just bought a pipe point and 20 feet of 2" pipe, couplings, and a hand operated pitcher pump - they used a rear axle from a Model T to hammer the point into the ground, followed by pipes, and when it was totally driven leaving about 3 feet above the ground, attached the pump and had water.   If the screen on the point clogged, they removed the pump and fired a .22 down the pipe to clear the screen, attached the pump again and pumped water!  

BTW:  The well for the town was Artesian - the water came out of the ground by its own pressure - they just had to keep pumping the excess water from the tank to keep it from overflowing.   2500 feet deep and never did hit bedrock.   Maybe we were draining Lake Michigan?  ;<)   EDMO

Edited by EDMO
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Posted (edited)

I have about 20' of pipe with a sand point buried in the back yard from when I tried to drill a well.  I was driving it down though.  We have lots of clay and rock up here so it didn't go very well.  It was an experience though.  If one has sand, you can pump water down the pipe and push the pipe and sand point  down fairly easy.  Never tried it myself but I don't doubt it works.  If you burn out the drill, I have a couple of 3/4" drills that I don't need. Also have some old electric drill/impact wrenches. They are as big as the 3/4" drills, handles are about 2' long.  They must have a lot of power, the sockets fit big truck lug nuts.  Never used them though.  Just some more junk I acquired.  Hope it works for you.  And hope you don't spend to much time on it.  I want to hear that the Kitfox is flying.  I flew mine for a while this evening.   JImChuk

Edited by 1avidflyer
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Posted (edited)

I have about 20' of pipe with a sand point buried in the back yard from when I tried to drill a well.  I was driving it down though.  We have lots of clay and rock up here so it didn't go very well.  It was an experience though.  If one has sand, you can pump water down the pipe and push the pipe and sand point  down fairly easy.  Never tried it myself but I don't doubt it works.  If you burn out the drill, I have a couple of 3/4" drills that I don't need. Also have some old electric drill/impact wrenches. They are as big as the 3/4" drills, handles are about 2' long.  They must have a lot of power, the sockets fit big truck lug nuts.  Never used them though.  Just some more junk I acquired.  Hope it works for you.  And hope you don't spend to much time on it.  I want to hear that the Kitfox is flying.  I fly mine for a while this evening.   JImChuk

Question:  How do you pump water down the pipe to get it to go down if you don't have a well - I thought that was why you were putting in a well?

Guess I spent too much time in hot sun and sand?  ;<)  Oh yes,  most of the farms in that area had "sand-blows" where the water from fissures in the 1811-12 New Madrid earthquake gushed up out of the ground and left an acre or more of  ocean sand on top of the fertile soil there.   My 3rd-Great-Grandparents were there at that time and wrote about that.   EDMO

Edited by EDMO

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Posted

To make a well in sand, you get a bunch of water in a tank, and pump it down the pipe and sand point you are trying to push into the ground.  When you are pushing water into the ground, it kind of liquefies the soil, and the pipe can be pushed down fairly easy.  You are kind of turning the soil into quicksand.  JImChuk

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Posted

Sounds interesting, I'll be watching. Curious though why you went the drill motor/bit route when so many D.I.Y.'ers use hydro jet? We gotta go a lot deeper than 40' here.

I did watch a few of them videos, very cool, But I think for me its the joy of building something and making it work, We seem to have very good water at 20 to 30 feet here, and if not I can always go deeper, Just have to change it on the drilling permit,

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Posted

 hope you don't spend to much time on it.  I want to hear that the Kitfox is flying.  I flew mine for a while this evening.   JImChuk

Ha right now I'm waiting for a 5/16 end mill bit (for my drill press) to lengthen the slots in the landing gear, still piddle with the plane, Just hate being indoors this time of year,

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Posted

 hope you don't spend to much time on it.  I want to hear that the Kitfox is flying.  I flew mine for a while this evening.   JImChuk

Ha right now I'm waiting for a 5/16 end mill bit (for my drill press) to lengthen the slots in the landing gear, still piddle with the plane, Just hate being indoors this time of year,

Rat-tail file works good.  ;<)  EDMO

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Posted

I drilled the ends on mine and used a cut off wheel to make the slots longer. 

 

Very cool project, will be watching thr progress!

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Posted

For those of you that wanna see something other than airplanes tonight I made a little progress on my well drill today, Ended up scrapping the garage door opener because it did not have a positive brake, Meaning it would not hold the drill up at the top, So off to buy some tubing today, Would be farther if I could just weld it all together but I am building it to fold up and hang on the wall when not in use, Enjoy,

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Posted

A quick update here I spent the weekend drilling my well.  Got to 30 feet and hit ground that was so rocky and hard that I had to stop.  Im in 8 feet of water but thats not nearly enough for a sprinkler.  But thats ok you win some and you loose some.  Time to start working on something else. Might try again later.

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Posted (edited)

My old "Stone Castle" that burned sat on a ridge at about 900 msl - Had a 750' deep well thru solid rock with 450' of standing water.  I replaced the antique sucker-rod pump with a submersible jet-pump.  Had great water and needed no filters.   Now live at 360 msl on city water with clorine and calcium in it.   EDMO

Edited by EDMO

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Posted

Maybe if you keep pumping it down the flow rate will increase over time.  Worth a try maybe.  JImChuk

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Posted

Maybe if you keep pumping it down the flow rate will increase over time.  Worth a try maybe.  JImChuk

Half-stick of dino will open up the pores!  ;<)  EDMO

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Posted

Wow!!! Most of my wells are 120 to 240'. And have a 10" outlet. Sorry for the bad luck!!!

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Posted (edited)

Wow!!! Most of my wells are 120 to 240'. And have a 10" outlet. Sorry for the bad luck!!!

Guess you need to go that deep to filter out the gator shit?  ;<)  Interesting comment I heard on Weather Channel, "All the water we have on earth is the water that has been here for millions of years - It just gets recycled."  Does that mean we are drinking dinosaur piss?  ;<)  EDMO

Edited by EDMO

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Posted

Maybe so Ed. :o My wells pull from the sand veins from the Mississippi River. You can tell the well performance increases when the river his high. Some of the wells that are closer to the river will run water even with the well off!

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Posted (edited)

Maybe so Ed. :o My wells pull from the sand veins from the Mississippi River. You can tell the well performance increases when the river his high. Some of the wells that are closer to the river will run water even with the well off!

Yes,  our city well down in the Missouri Bootheel was artesian all the time - had to keep pumping water out of the tank.  Think it was 2500' deep?  Guess the Mississippi Valley looked a lot different millions of years ago when it was under the ocean - might be again someday?   There have been Bullhead sharks caught up North from here, and I heard that they sent submarines down the Old Miss to the Gulf during WW2.   EDMO

Edited by EDMO

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Posted

They'll arrest you around here if you dig a well without a permit.  Water is scarce and folks have died for it.  

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Posted

Well I just couldn't give up so after weeks of digging drilling and water jetting I finally got what I wanted. She is producing an easy 3 gallons a minute. Pump is keeping up and well is flowing better and better every night. Definitely was harder than I thought it would be but I did save 2500 bucks so was it worth it, Hell yeah it was. Only thing left to do is cement the top few feet of the casing in.  Ok now what should I work on ha.

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Posted (edited)

Can you pipe some of it down to Missouri?  We have wet areas around us, but have been in a drought this year.  I tried to dig some post holes this week and only got down 2" in topsoil before hitting dry clay that was hard as a rock.  Had to soak a gallon of water in each hole for every 2" I wanted to go deeper. 

Congrats on your success!  Now, you can start looking for another project.  :BC:  EDMO

Edited by EDMO

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Posted

How about finishing up that Kitfox!  :-)   I want to hear that it's flying.  Glad your well drilling turned out ok.  Maybe you've found a new line of work. :-)  I though I was going to fly my Avid MK IV for the first time in 6years tonight.  I guess  in a way I did. One crow hop.  Wasn't accelerating like it seemed it should, didn't trust the tach, and a couple other glitches that just now popped up. I'll try again tomorrow evening.  JImChuk

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